Yet another from Christine Brennan. She's doesn't she ever get tired of writing the same type of drivel. I mean, does she really believe this?

In response, they shelved the sport's immensely popular but flawed 6.0 scoring system for an anonymous points-based system that few truly understand to this day. Even though it has produced some fairer results, this was a huge marketing mistake. The 6.0 system was reality TV before there was reality TV. It was Dancing with the Stars before anyone ever heard of the show, with the flags of the judges' countries and their scores superimposed over the skater watching in the aptly named "Kiss and Cry" area. Every TV show on earth wanted what skating had, and skating gave it all away.

bek. Step away from the keyboard. Take a deep breath. Please. Your obsessive-compulsive posting about Chan's win across multiple forums is sad to watch.

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I'm just bored.. I will get over it in a day! Its called I have been tired all day and after Mass wanting to laze around...Tommorrow I"ll be focused on work! work! work....Plus nobody in real life watches skating so this is my way to vent!......

Christine Brennan is a lousy writer, but it can't be denied that the popularity of the sport has dropped like a stone in the U.S., even before Tonya and Nancy there would often be live telecasts of the ladies FS on network television.

Christine Brennan is a lousy writer, but it can't be denied that the popularity of the sport has dropped like a stone in the U.S., even before Tonya and Nancy there would often be live telecasts of the ladies FS on network television.

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Huh? Christine is a fantastic writer-- if she weren't, she wouldn't have the job that she has, and she wouldn't have the respect within the industry that she does (and she does-- I've seen it firsthand). If you don't like what she writes, that's fine, but she is definitely skilled at her craft. What Christine is bringing to light is that the average person who might have been watching the Latvian feed (ha!) would not understand why Chan won over Ten. Skating fans might get it, but the average viewer does not. And honestly, there are enough SKATERS who are complaining about that specific result that I tend to think that there might be some merit to it.

Christine Brennan is a lousy writer, but it can't be denied that the popularity of the sport has dropped like a stone in the U.S., even before Tonya and Nancy there would often be live telecasts of the ladies FS on network television.

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I agree that the popularity of FS is at the lowest I have ever seen, and I have been watching this since 1984, and been an avid fan since 1988. Nancy-Tonya episode may have given it more publicity, but long before that, our networks used to show most major competitions, and pro competitions, plus exhibitions that were actually interesting. I don't believe that 2002 Olympics made the sport less popular either. Our networks have simply dropped it and I can't understand why. ESPN does not mind showing high school girls' basketball games, but they won't show world figure skating championships. Clearly they don't see FS as a sport. I do believe they are wrong, but who can convince them (or any other network) to bring back FS on TV?

I did notice how small the rink was.. I was surprised because it was in Canada.

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I don't remember where 1993 Skate Canada was, but I remember Katia Gordeeva hit the wall on a throw when she landed it. I vaguely remember the commentator saying (paraphrasing) that the rink was smaller than those in the USA. Of course G&G were not from the USA, but I am assuming that the rinks in Russia are bigger than the one at SC that time. Could that be the case in London, ONT? I always thought that the practice sessions would help the skaters adjust their routines with the size of the rink. Apparently they cannot.

I don't remember where 1993 Skate Canada was, but I remember Katia Gordeeva hit the wall on a throw when she landed it. I vaguely remember the commentator saying (paraphrasing) that the rink was smaller than those in the USA. Of course G&G were not from the USA, but I am assuming that the rinks in Russia are bigger than the one at SC that time. Could that be the case in London, ONT? I always thought that the practice sessions would help the skaters adjust their routines with the size of the rink. Apparently they cannot.

Huh? Christine is a fantastic writer-- if she weren't, she wouldn't have the job that she has, and she wouldn't have the respect within the industry that she does (and she does-- I've seen it firsthand). If you don't like what she writes, that's fine, but she is definitely skilled at her craft. What Christine is bringing to light is that the average person who might have been watching the Latvian feed (ha!) would not understand why Chan won over Ten. Skating fans might get it, but the average viewer does not. And honestly, there are enough SKATERS who are complaining about that specific result that I tend to think that there might be some merit to it.

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I disagree, and David Foster Wallace for one agrees with my assessment as evidenced in an essay he wrote;I could provide a link, but I really think my life will have reached its nadir if I wind up in an on-line argument about the merits of Christine Brennan's writing, so please let's end this here.

I agree that the popularity of FS is at the lowest I have ever seen, and I have been watching this since 1984, and been an avid fan since 1988. Nancy-Tonya episode may have given it more publicity, but long before that, our networks used to show most major competitions, and pro competitions, plus exhibitions that were actually interesting. I don't believe that 2002 Olympics made the sport less popular either. Our networks have simply dropped it and I can't understand why. ESPN does not mind showing high school girls' basketball games, but they won't show world figure skating championships. Clearly they don't see FS as a sport. I do believe they are wrong, but who can convince them (or any other network) to bring back FS on TV?

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Maybe ISU is charging the US TV network way too much money to be televised. It's really ISU's fault.

I would say it's more like as the popularity of figure skating in the US is dwindling, so are Christine Brennan's opportunities for publication, and some gets more attention than "oh, what a pretty dress".

(Note that I actually like Brennan's writing 99% of the time, but IMHO what I wrote above is true for her and for every other media person that has some knowledge and experience of figure skating coverage.)

Huh? Christine is a fantastic writer-- if she weren't, she wouldn't have the job that she has, and she wouldn't have the respect within the industry that she does (and she does-- I've seen it firsthand). If you don't like what she writes, that's fine, but she is definitely skilled at her craft. What Christine is bringing to light is that the average person who might have been watching the Latvian feed (ha!) would not understand why Chan won over Ten. Skating fans might get it, but the average viewer does not. And honestly, there are enough SKATERS who are complaining about that specific result that I tend to think that there might be some merit to it.

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She's not a bad writer, but she's hardly fantastic, and at least as a skating reporter, Brennan is dreadful. She doesn't do her research (she still doesn't understand the scoring system, nor does she try to; Denis Ten is not an unknown; etc.) and is horribly biased. I realize that an American journalist at a mainstream US publication will cover and support mostly American skaters, but in her case it's extreme and slanted - she was practically Frank Carroll's PR person in the months leading up to Vancouver, reporting some clearly inaccurate statements while she was at it. I've also come across nasty comments by her about skaters from other countries that were completely uncalled for.

There are certainly issues about these World Championships that did not go well, but while several bloggers have written thoughtful, interesting posts on that subject, Brennan didn't. She could have written this column about any skating event; it's her generic "IJS bad, Speedy bad, skating is a niche sport in the US ergo it's doomed everywhere" crap that she churns out every time. I would be surprised if this wasn't half-written well ahead of time.

I have no respect for her. Maybe she's better at covering other sports, but I really don't wish to find out.

Yet another from Christine Brennan. She's doesn't she ever get tired of writing the same type of drivel.

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I think she has a valid point. Skating is dying, at least to the layman fan.

And it's not just Brennan saying so. Fleets of coaches, commentators, media and press, not to mention past and current skaters alike, all blame the new judging system as the primary cause for skating's chronic decline.

Surely this collective response can't be dismissed as mere drivel generated in a vacuum, can it? There has to be some validity behind their arguments, don't you think?

At the end of the day, regardless of affiliation or agenda, I think people like Brennan and Hersh, as well as everyone else addressing this decline, ultimately care deeply about the sport and don't want to see it completely fade into obscurity like those other extremely insular niche sports like curling or fencing.

Yes, skating is extremely popular in Asia, but so is badminton, and when do you ever really see or hear about that sport outside of the Olympics or Asia? That's not a fate I want for skating, to have its popularity relegated to one half of the world. I'm not expecting skating to return to its glory days of the mid-90s, but even before that era skating always seemed to enjoy a tangential relationship with the casual fan and that seems to be dying quickly.

I think I would feel more comforted if the decline were appearing to stabilize, but every season I see the audience in the stands getting smaller and smaller, and the networks broadcasting less and less. I mean, have you ever seen a Canadian audience that small at a World Championship? That's scary to see IMO from a country that has such a deeply rooted history and reverence for the sport.

Ultimately, I think hardcore skating fans get the nuance of this debate and, because we are hardcore fans, can argue down to the finest decimal the merit of COP. But sometimes I think we can't see the forest for the trees.

I think the larger picture speaks for itself: the casual fans are leaving.

Say what you will about the 6.0 system, but despite all its flaws and all the wuzrobbing back in the day, the casual fans always came back to watch. I don't think they're coming back now.

I've been a skating fan for a long time and I find the argument that COP is killing off the casual fan population to be baffling.

Why would the scoring system do that?

Under 6.0:

Casual fans did not understand the scoring system.

Skaters who didn't fall lost to skaters who did.

Controversies over results were rampant.

Everyone believed the judging was corrupt.

And this was the system people were supposed to prefer??????

For years, there were demands that skating clean up its act, fix the judging (or just die, as judged sports aren't real sports, anyway), and make it easier for fans to understand the system, and every time they did something to diddle with 6.0, it got even more confusing. I got 6.0; I never did understand OBO.

And yet, people preferred it that way? Really? Why? Because they liked the drama of it all?

There is no television coverage this year; without it, skating is dead. Casual fans by definition are not going to go online looking for links to TV coverage from other countries. They aren't even going to know Worlds is going on; they never did. They would stumble across it on the weekends while flipping channels. There is no place for them to come back to. And isn't the lack of skating on television in the US the result of some kind of contract issue?

6.0 for all its faults made intuivie and emotional sense (both of which are far more important than raw numbers for the casual and semi-casual fans that any sport needs).

Tieing the scores to judges from specific countries made the scores seem more... real. And half the fun was second judging the judges.

Crucially, before 2002 the great majority of fans trusted that the judging system wasn't totally corrupt, that some of the more questionalbe results were because of finer technical details that casual fans weren't trained to see.

2002 destroyed that and everything the ISU has done since then has simply created the impression that the ISU isn't interested in stopping cheating as much as making it more difficult to detect. No matter what it has said that has been what most people understand.

I'm very sympathetic to some of the ideas behind IJS/COP but the execution has been terrible. I still have no clear idea what a good score is and the concept of "levels" has just killed spins and footwork.

I paid no attention whatsoever to figure skating this season and it's largely because the current judging system still doesn't make intuitive or emotional sense to me and doesn't engage me the way that 6.0 did (ok, and partly because eurosport has disappeared behind a paywall where I live).

All evidence to the contrary. She clearly doesn't understand what she is writing about with regards to figure skating.

- If she had been paying any attention to the sport at all, she'd know that Denis Ten is hardly unknown.
- She (and others like her) keep conflating COP with anonymous judging. They are two separate issues altogether.
- She acknowledges that the current system is fairer, but then suggests we go back to 6.0 because even though it was flawed it made for better TV. WTF?

There is an upside to skating not being as popular as it once was in the US - hopefully it means we won't have to read drivel from Brennan and her ilk as much any more.